A working solution for using W11 and WSL to provision VirtualBox + Vagrant VMs with Ansible

Hi,

1st of all I wanted to thank you for your amazing book. I just started it, but paired with your Youtube channel, it is fantastic.

I don't own a linux machine, and while I originally intended to work with "normal" VMs for this course, Vagrant seemed more interresting. But sadly, I don't own a mac or a Linux box.

So I embarked on a journey to make this work despite it being quite a complicated thing. And document it.

These below are my personal notes, you are 100% free to use them as is, modify and/or distribute them, even without my knowledge.

I would be grateful if you or anyone coming here, could improve on it, detect my mistakes, and add to my documentation.

I have also documented some of the pitfalls I ran into, like the one I encountered with mounted win drives...

Oh, and it is in french. You are free to help me translate it :)

----

# Documentation sur les points complexes du cours **Ansible For Devops**

## Installer Vagrant sur un système WSL, avec prise en charge du provisioning via Ansible

> N'ayant pas de homelab Linux à la maison, je passe par un WSL sur mon Windows 11.
>
> En plus d'être nécessaire dans mon cas, le challenge est stimulant et intéressant.
>
> Étonnament, il est difficile de trouver de l'information sur ce sujet.
>
> Le site officiel de Hashicorp indique d'ailleurs :
>> Warning: Advanced Topic! Using Vagrant within the Windows Subsystem for Linux is an advanced topic that only experienced Vagrant users who are reasonably comfortable with Windows, WSL, and Linux should approach.

### Sources d'information utilisées

* ℹ️ On se base sur le livre [Ansible For Devops](http://leanpub.com/ansible-for-devops) par Jeff Geerling

* Vagrant and Windows Subsystem for Linux :
* https://developer.hashicorp.com/vagrant/docs/other/wsl (doc officielle)
* https://thenets.org/how-to-run-vagrant-on-wsl-2/
* https://nicksantos.com/2020/05/ansible-deploys-from-windows-using-wsl-hyper-v-and-vagrant/

* Permissions sur les disques Windows sous wsl :
* https://www.turek.dev/posts/fix-wsl-file-permissions/
* https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4200
* https://blog.davidbollobas.hu/2022/09/19/mount-windows-folder-to-wsl-ubuntu/
* https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk

### Liste des prérequis

* 🪟 Windows 11
* 🪟 Oracle Virtualbox installé sur la partie HÔTE WINDOWS : Version 7.0.12 r159484 (Qt5.15.2)
> ⚠️ PAS DANS LA PARTIE WSL !!!
* 🪟 Un répertoire dédié (avec assez d'espace disque) dans la partie HÔTE WINDOWS
> Ici : `E:\Work` ; on y créera les sous-répertoires dédiés : `.\Devops\Vagrant\`
* 🐧 WSL 2 à jour (Installation non détaillée ici)
```powershell
wsl -v
```
```
Version WSL : 2.4.13.0
Version du noyau : 5.15.167.4-1
Version WSLg : 1.0.65
Version MSRDC : 1.2.5716
Version direct3D : 1.611.1-81528511
Version de DXCore : 10.0.26100.1-240331-1435.ge-release
Version de Windows : 10.0.26100.3775
```
> Le `user:group` utilisé dans cette documentation est `homelab:homelab`

* 🐧 Packages à jour dans la partie WSL
> Faire tous les `updates` / `upgrades` dans `apt`
* 🐧 Vagrant installé dans la partie WSL
> ⚠️ PAS DANS LA PARTIE HÔTE WINDOWS
* 🐧 Ansible installé dans la partie WSL
> ⚠️ PAS DANS LA PARTIE HÔTE WINDOWS

---

### Installation des prérequis

#### 🪟 Virtualbox

* Télécharger via : https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
* Installer (non détaillé ici)

#### 🐧 Dépendances diverses

> Je ne suis pas 100% sur qu'elles soient toutes 100% utiles

```bash
sudo apt install qemu qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system virtinst bridge-utils
sudo systemctl enable libvirtd
sudo systemctl start libvirtd
sudo apt install -y ebtables
```

#### 🐧 Vagrant

* Suivre les instructions à cette adresse : https://developer.hashicorp.com/vagrant/install
```bash
wget -O - https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install vagrant
```

* Installer le plugin WSL2
```bash
vagrant plugin install virtualbox_WSL2
```

#### 🐧 Ansible
* Installer Ansible
```bash
sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:ansible/ansible
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ansible
```

### Configuration

* 🐧 Mettre à jour la configuration par défaut de WSL
```bash
sudo vim /etc/wsl.conf
```
```
[boot]
systemd=true
[automount]
enabled = true
mountFsTab = true
```

* 🐧 Ajouter un point de montage dans la `fstab`, pour le répertoire de travail
```bash
sudo vim /etc/fstab
```
```
E:\Work /home/homelab/work drvfs metadata,rw,noatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=22,fmask=111 0 0
```

* 🐧 Ajouter à la fin du `~/.bashrc` :
```bash
## For Vagrant
export VAGRANT_WSL_ENABLE_WINDOWS_ACCESS="1"
export PATH="$PATH:/mnt/c/Program Files/Oracle/VirtualBox"
export VAGRANT_USER_DIR_E="/home/homelab/work/Devops/Vagrant/"
export VAGRANT_WSL_WINDOWS_ACCESS_USER_HOME_PATH=${VAGRANT_USER_DIR_E}

if [[ "$(umask)" = "0000" ]]; then
umask 0022
fi
```

* 🪟 Arrêter puis relancer WSL (depuis Powershell)
```powershell
wsl.exe --shutdown
wsl.exe
```

### 🐧 Création d'une VM de test avec un playbook minimal

* Création du playbook
```bash
cd ~/work/Devops/Vagrant
vim playbook.yml
```
```yaml
---
- hosts: all
become: yes

tasks:
- name: Ensure chrony (for time synchronization) is installed.
dnf:
name: chrony
state: present

- name: Ensure chrony is running.
service:
name: chronyd
state: started
enabled: yes
```

* Création de la VM
```bash
vagrant init geerlingguy/rockylinux8
```
```
A `Vagrantfile` has been placed in this directory. You are now
ready to `vagrant up` your first virtual environment! Please read
the comments in the Vagrantfile as well as documentation on
`vagrantup.com` for more information on using Vagrant.
```

* Redéfinition du Vagrantfile pour y inclure le provisioning
```bash
vim Vagrantfile
```
```
# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
config.vm.box = "geerlingguy/rockylinux8"
# Provisioning configuration for Ansible.
config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
ansible.playbook = "playbook.yml"
end
end
```

* Lancement et provisioning de la VM (elle se récupère automatiquement)
```bash
vagrant up
```
```
Bringing machine 'default' up with 'virtualbox' provider...
==> default: Importing base box 'geerlingguy/rockylinux8'...
==> default: Matching MAC address for NAT networking...
==> default: Checking if box 'geerlingguy/rockylinux8' version '1.0.1' is up to date...
==> default: Setting the name of the VM: Vagrant_default_1745974859003_86420
==> default: Clearing any previously set network interfaces...
==> default: Preparing network interfaces based on configuration...
default: Adapter 1: nat
==> default: Forwarding ports...
default: 22 (guest) => 2222 (host) (adapter 1)
default: 22 (guest) => 2222 (host) (adapter 1)
==> default: Booting VM...
==> default: Waiting for machine to boot. This may take a few minutes...
default: SSH address: xxx.xxx.xxx.1:2222
default: SSH username: vagrant
default: SSH auth method: private key
default:
default: Vagrant insecure key detected. Vagrant will automatically replace
default: this with a newly generated keypair for better security.
default:
default: Inserting generated public key within guest...
default: Removing insecure key from the guest if it's present...
default: Key inserted! Disconnecting and reconnecting using new SSH key...
==> default: Machine booted and ready!
==> default: Checking for guest additions in VM...
default: The guest additions on this VM do not match the installed version of
default: VirtualBox! In most cases this is fine, but in rare cases it can
default: prevent things such as shared folders from working properly. If you see
default: shared folder errors, please make sure the guest additions within the
default: virtual machine match the version of VirtualBox you have installed on
default: your host and reload your VM.
default:
default: Guest Additions Version: 6.1.32
default: VirtualBox Version: 7.0
==> default: Mounting shared folders...
default: /home/homelab/work/Devops/Vagrant => /vagrant
==> default: Running provisioner: ansible...
Vagrant gathered an unknown Ansible version:

and falls back on the compatibility mode '1.8'.

Alternatively, the compatibility mode can be specified in your Vagrantfile:
https://www.vagrantup.com/docs/provisioning/ansible_common.html#compatibility_mode

default: Running ansible-playbook...

PLAY [all] *********************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *********************************************************
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: Distribution centos 8.7 on host default should use
/usr/libexec/platform-python, but is using /usr/bin/python for backward
compatibility with prior Ansible releases. A future Ansible release will
default to using the discovered platform python for this host. See https://docs
.ansible.com/ansible/2.10/reference_appendices/interpreter_discovery.html for
more information. This feature will be removed in version 2.12. Deprecation
warnings can be disabled by setting deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.
ok: [default]

TASK [Ensure chrony (for time synchronization) is installed.] ******************
ok: [default]

TASK [Ensure chrony is running.] ***********************************************
ok: [default]

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
default : ok=3 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
```

* Vérification des répertoires
```bash
ls -l
```
```
drwxr-xr-x 1 homelab homelab 4096 Apr 30 03:11 .vagrant/
drwxr-xr-x 1 homelab homelab 4096 Apr 30 03:11 .vagrant.d/
-rw-r--r-- 1 homelab homelab 3397 Apr 30 03:11 Vagrantfile
-rw------- 1 homelab homelab 266 Apr 30 00:56 playbook.yml
```
```bash
ls -l .vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key
-rw------- 1 homelab homelab 400 Apr 30 03:13 .vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key
```

### Erreurs rencontrées pendant la création de cette documentation

```
The private key to connect to this box via SSH has invalid permissions
set on it. The permissions of the private key should be set to 0600, otherwise SSH will
ignore the key. Vagrant tried to do this automatically for you but failed. Please set the
permissions on the following file to 0600 and then try running this command again:

/mnt/e/Work/Devops/Vagrant/.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key
```
> Cause initiale : impossible de modifier les permissions des fichiers dans le répertoire de travail (et masque 0000 par défaut)
>
> Cause réelle : répertoire de travail appartenant à un FS monté sans metadata et sans umask/fmask => permissions Windows réelles appliquées
>
> Solution (erronée) : définition des options metadata et umask/fmask dans les paramètres de l'automount (config globale WSL)
>
> Solution réelle : voir erreur suivante

```
Permission denied - /mnt/c/Program Files/Oracle/VirtualBox/VBoxManage.exe
```
> Cause : disques Windows montés dans WSL avec metadata et umask/fmask
>
> Solution : Montage d'un répertoire spécifique via fstab pour le répertoire de travail

No repository file or documentation entry point is named. Start by locating the project's documentation structure, then compare the W11/WSL2, Vagrant, VirtualBox, and Ansible notes with the cited HashiCorp WSL documentation and verify the commands and caveats. Done means an agreed, accurate documentation contribution with a clear language and placement.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.